Our Purposes

“…exceptionally privileged…”

• To project to the world outside prison the privileged insights of chaplains. Prisons are places where superficialities are swept aside, revealing human characteristics in exaggerated form. They are crucibles, testing the strength and significance of any faith message. Many around the world believe that they are exceptionally privileged to work pastorally in a prison. Justice Reflections aims therefore to reveal cumulatively how theological insights of prison chaplains can help everyone reflect more hopefully on painful human experience. The objectivity of theological reflection in this context might also help people at large understand better how they have come to where they are and how they might progress from here.
  
  

• To develop a publication that strikes a balance between the too academic and the too simplistic and that accumulates over time a unique repository of theological papers relevant to law and order. Although many write on these matters of justice, no one has previously attempted to collect and present such papers on a regular basis in diverse and assimilable form. Ron Nikkel, President of Prison Fellowship International, has said:
  'Justice Reflections fills a vacuum'.
   

• To stimulate people in prison ministry to think more widely about the context of their work. Any job in law and order can be cloistered and mentally confining. Conversely theological thinking can be cosmic and liberating!
   

• To establish wide readership within the justice system. Since it was established this publication has developed links in many countries with hundreds of people concerned about the implementation of justice. Justice Reflections highlights inspirational work among victims and offenders and aims to help people working in law and order to embrace tensions.
   

• To receive scripts from anyone willing to submit them to the editor. Original and classic scripts from the past will be welcomed.
   

• To be open to insights from all faiths.
   

• To respond to the need for theological stimulus among those connected with victims and offenders in parts of the world where working conditions are often utterly brutalising. Colleagues surviving in such circumstances can, for their part, share important insights through this publication.

“…utterly brutalising…”